Editor’s Note: This article is part of our Rankings & Tiers series, an evaluation across sport about the key players, front offices, teams, franchises and much more.
Welcome to The Athletic’s fourth annual MLB Position Player Tiers, where we rank the top 100 position players in baseball based on their expected all-around hitting, fielding and baserunning value for the 2025 season and group them with similarly ranked players in the following six tiers:
• Best of the best
• MVP contenders
• All-stars
• Steady and solid
• 30-something regulars
• 20-something regulars
Players are not ranked individually within each tier, so they’re listed in alphabetical order. We’ll leave any additional debate to the readers. For the fifth and sixth tiers, we broke them down further into 20-something regulars and 30-something regulars.
We’ve also enlisted scouts, coaches and front-office personnel from across MLB to share their thoughts — anonymously, so as to be unfiltered — on the players being ranked and the rankings themselves. And if you’re curious how each of us ranked our top 100 players, you can find out here.
Tier 1 — The best of the best
It was fairly easy to find consensus on the best of the best. Aaron Judge is coming off his second MVP award. Shohei Ohtani just won his third, founding the 50/50 club in the process. Mookie Betts hasn’t won an MVP since 2018, but since then he’s compiled more bWAR (34.6) than anyone besides Judge, with commendable positional versatility that has helped the Dodgers stay on top. (Betts’ updated career ring count: three.)
Each of those three players is older than 30. Two others in this group are just starting breathtaking primes that should last a while. Bobby Witt Jr., 24, led the majors in hitting (.332) last season while making his second annual visit to the 30/30 club. Another shortstop, 23-year-old Gunnar Henderson, blasted 37 homers and rolled up 9.1 bWAR while excelling in the field.
If there’s any doubt about this group, it’s from the lack of defensive contributions by two of our top six. One player development executive disputed the inclusion of Ohtani, calling him the game’s best position player — but only if he plays in the outfield. With Ohtani preparing to pitch again in 2025, that’s not in the plans.
The biggest question, however, concerns the overall impact of Juan Soto, the Mets’ new $765 million man. One veteran National League scout found it amusing that Soto gets credit for not being a DH, when he’d actually help his team more without playing in the field.
“I don’t think Soto belongs up here,” the scout said. “He’s not good defensively and he’s not a good baserunner. He walks and he hits home runs every now and then. I’m not saying he’s not good, but for me, he’s one of the most overrated players. The way we value walks today is what puts him in this class.”
The scout compared Soto’s seven seasons to the peak of Brian Giles, another outfielder who offered little defensively but hit for power and walked prodigiously. Giles posted a .303/.418/.554 slash line for Pittsburgh and San Diego from 1999 to 2005. Soto’s numbers across seven seasons: .285/.421/.532.
It’s an imperfect comparison, given the difference in eras and ages; Soto is still only 26, and Giles didn’t even start his prime until age 28. But it’s instructive in how our viewpoint has changed on the skill set that makes Soto an undisputed member of the game’s elite, while Giles was never widely viewed that way. — Tyler Kepner
Tier 2 — MVP contenders
This is a level for greatness, just a half-step down from the top. All of these players command your attention whenever they’re on the field — and when they pick up a bat, you pause what you’re doing and prepare to be amazed.
The issue, for some, is durability. Corey Seager has missed at least 35 games in three of the past four seasons — but one of those times, in 2023, he was still so dominant that he led the Rangers to a title while finishing second to Ohtani for MVP.
Then there’s Ronald Acuña Jr. In one of the past four seasons, 2023, he was the National League’s unanimous MVP. But in 2021, 2022 and 2024, he did not play enough to appear on a single MVP ballot. Tearing both ACLs, one in each knee, will do that to a guy.
“Acuña coming off 2nd ACL introduces a lot of Royce Lewis risk,” one pro scout texted, “just as far as how many games will he play/how often will he be nursing tweaks that hurt his hitting.”
Acuña’s productivity will be limited this season by the calendar; he’s not expected to return until early to mid-May. Even so, he’s just 27, the age when many players tend to enjoy their best season. So if you assume a full recovery, another scout said, “Acuña belongs in the top group.”
Some folks were unsure about the placement here of two over-30 first basemen, Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman, perhaps reflecting the industry’s perception of a position that no longer commands as much value in free agency as it once did.
“I love everything Bryce does at the plate and I don’t see that going away yet,” one MLB pitcher said. “I find it hard to believe I would like 20 guys more than him at the plate. However, I feel like, as a first baseman, his overall impact isn’t as big as someone who plays a premium position.”
Regarding Freeman, a pro scouting vice president said, “MVP candidate is maybe a stretch, with his battle wounds.”
Maybe so, but Freeman — like Harper — has won MVP in the regular season and postseason and is a leading hitter on a perennial playoff team. Their spots in this tier make plenty of sense.
The most divisive player among this group, however, is surely Julio Rodríguez.
“Who is the real Julio?” one NL scout wondered, and we’re not sure we really know. One of us ranked Rodríguez in the top tier, one considered him third tier and one put him in tier two — which is why he ended up here.
“The thing about Julio Rodríguez is he’ll never have the kind of offensive numbers you’ll see from guys who play in other ballparks,” said one top baseball operations exec. “The hitting environment up there is just so different.”
Indeed, it might be best to grade Rodríguez on a curve. In his three-year career, he’s hit .264/.319/.455 at T-Mobile Park but .290/.348/.479 on the road. That doesn’t excuse his annually declining OPS — from .853 to .818 to .734 — but we’re willing to consider last year as the aberration.
Rodríguez is 24, finished the season strong (.895 OPS in September) and if we’re being literal, he’d seem to have a good chance at MVP if Seattle returns to the playoffs after two near-misses. As the offensive centerpiece of a team built on pitching, Rodríguez could be seen as a singular difference-maker — critical to a narrative-based argument that could sway even the most analytical of MVP voters.
In any case, Rodríguez has the power/speed/defense/youth profile that should make him ascendant. The same roughly applies to Elly De La Cruz, 23, though his negative extremes gave one evaluator pause. Prodigious as his talent is, De La Cruz led the majors last season in errors (29), times caught stealing (16) and strikeouts — 218, just five shy of Mark Reynolds’ single-season record.
“He’s extremely dynamic, but he’s not great yet,” one longtime pro scout said. “I don’t think he stays at shortstop — if Matt McLain is healthy, I’d rather have him there — and I worry about his overall approach at the plate.”
Yet, when a player has De La Cruz’s ability, the same scout said, he might be just as likely to soar.
“If he’s able to (adjust),” the scout said, “I would actually put him in the top group.” — TK
Tier 3 — All-stars
This tier is an interesting mix of big-name, perennial MVP candidate veterans who have been knocked down a peg or two by injuries/aging, alongside a whole slew of ascending young franchise building blocks with MVP-level upsides.
Mike Trout vs. injuries
Mike Trout played just 41 percent of the Angels’ games from 2021-24, but his .951 OPS during that time ranked fourth in MLB, sandwiched between Yordan Alvarez (.958) and Soto (.943). Even last season’s .867 OPS would have ranked in the top 15 for qualified hitters, but his season ended in late April and now he’s moving from center field to right field in an effort to stay healthier.
Have never-ending injuries already closed the three-time MVP’s superstar window, or does Trout have another MVP-caliber season left in the tank? Opinions about his placement — and overall outlook — understandably varied a lot.
“Don’t sleep on Mike Trout,” said a baseball operations vice president. “He’s far from done. If he stays healthy, he’s still an MVP-caliber player.”
A research and development analyst took another stance on Trout’s ranking: “Probably too high still. Availability is the best ability.”
Youth movement
Corbin Carroll looked like a Tier 2 lock after a fantastic rookie year, but he took a step backward as a sophomore, losing 54 points of batting average and 119 points of OPS. However, it was really just an awful first half. Carroll had 17 homers, 17 steals and a .919 OPS in the second half, looking every bit like the stud freshman.
Carroll is also still just 24, making him the fifth-youngest Tier 3 player behind Jackson Merrill, Jackson Chourio, Michael Harris II and Riley Greene. If healthy, the odds are more than one of those five will make the jump into Tier 2 or maybe even Tier 1 for next year’s rankings.
“Merrill is underrated,” said one MLB pitching coach. “He has an advanced approach for a guy his age. Not just a power threat. And he switched positions at 20 for a playoff team. Hear great things about his makeup and ability to lead that club.”
Catcher catchall
Tier 3 is where catchers make their first appearance on the list, with William Contreras and Adley Rutschman, both 27, joining 28-year-old Cal Raleigh.
Rutschman declined by 100 points of OPS last season due to a rough second half, but no one seems worried about the No. 1 overall pick long term, with one player development executive opining: “I’d have him higher, probably.”
Raleigh led all catchers with 34 homers in 2024 and 30 homers in 2023, which is remarkable for someone calling Seattle’s extremely pitcher-friendly ballpark home. For his career, Raleigh has a .668 OPS at home and an .809 OPS on the road. And he’s the AL’s reigning Gold Glove winner, leading the league in both framing runs (plus-13) and caught stealing (32) last season.
“Raleigh is a switch-hitting catcher with a 120 OPS+ and a Platinum Glove winner who plays 150 games,” said the research and development analyst. “I get that Contreras is the better bat, but Raleigh is so good defensively. You can make the argument for him over Rutschman.” — Aaron Gleeman
Tier 4 — Steady and solid
How great could Wyatt Langford be?
Last September, Wyatt Langford was on fire, combining his great power with contact and patience at the plate, strong work in the field and excellent base running to put up more wins above replacement of any player in baseball not named Shohei Ohtani. Could he reach his ceiling so quickly that this ranking will seem silly at the end of the year?
“Besides Corey Seager, he has the highest ceiling on that roster,” a major-league hitting coach told us. “The movement/setup and path changes he made in season tell the entire world about this guy’s aptitude and level of somatic genius.”
Somatic genius aside, that September was brilliant and proof of the immense upside residing in that Texas outfield.
The value of floor with Steven Kwan and Andrés Giménez
We had some disagreements when it came to two very steady and solid players in Steven Kwan and Andrés Giménez. Some of our correspondents felt that their lack of ceiling could mean that they fall off this list in the future, while others felt that we may not value their strengths enough.
“Kwan is a corner outfielder yet to OPS over .800, and he’s getting significantly slower as he ages,” said an NL scout. “I like him, but think about the kind of production a Bo Bichette, a Zach Neto, a Xander Bogaerts might give you, and also the question of what if 2024 is Kwan’s ceiling, not a new baseline?”
“Steven Kwan is more than just steady and solid — he’s an excellent all-around player,” said an NL baseball ops executive. “He gets on base, plays strong defense, and will be in his prime at 27 years old in 2025. While power isn’t his calling card, he showed growth in that area last season. He continues to make the people who bet against him look like fools.”
“Absolutely love Giménez’s defense and makeup, but pretty darn concerned about his Statcast page the past two seasons,” said an NL scout. “He was good in 2022 but expected stats then were nowhere near as good as his OPS.”
Looks like we won’t solve the age-old question: Just how good is pretty good, anyway?
Jazz capable of a new sound?
So far in his career, Jazz Chisholm Jr. has shown he can raise his game and also miss half the season with injuries. We got responses that showed two very different viewpoints on what the Yankees chapter of his career will look like.
“I’m pretty bullish on Jazz with the Yankees,” said an MLB pitcher. “I think he’s very likely to have a career year. The tools have been there but putting it all together has been tough so far. ”
“I’m not confident Chisholm fits in the All-Star class, even with the Yankee Stadium boost,” said an AL scouting exec who was a little more negative about Chisholm’s future.
With the way the injury news has come in so far in Yankees camp, though, just how much Chisholm plays may have more importance to the team than exactly how good he is.
Notable quotable
One AL evaluator on Pete Alonso taking up residence in Tier 4: “Way too high, lol.” — Eno Sarris
Tier 5 — 30-something regulars
This tier is largely about who can hold off Father Time the longest, with some later-career breakouts like Jurickson Profar sprinkled in.
Byron Buxton vs. injuries
Byron Buxton is a tricky player to rank. On a per-game basis, he’d be at least one and possibly two tiers higher, ranking 19th among all position players over the past five seasons in fWAR per 162 games. But that’s hard to justify because of constant injuries, and he’s also a 31-year-old who relies on elite-level speed and athleticism in center field.
Buxton ended last season healthy and will begin this season healthy after playing 102 games in 2024 and posting the second-highest OPS by a center fielder behind Judge. And yet 102 games were his most since 2017, making it impossible to assume his great per-game production will make it through the six-month grind. It sure would be fun to watch at least once, though.
“Buxton is an obvious health risk,” said one NL scout. “But he belongs in the All-Star group.”
Bad year or decline phase for Xander Bogaerts?
Xander Bogaerts should be higher based on his track record and nowhere near the top 100 based on last season alone, so we’re splitting the difference and assuming he’ll bounce back at least somewhat after his worst season since his rookie year.
“Bogaerts should be pushed down the list,” said one AL scouting exec. “Our projections for him aren’t favorable. Dinged on both sides of the ball.”
Said an NL evaluator: “Bogaerts is in really good shape, having shed 10 pounds running all offseason and moving well at shortstop.”
Salvador Perez aging like fine wine
Meanwhile, it’s the opposite story for Salvador Perez, who put up the second-most homers (27) and second-most RBIs (104) of his career as a 34-year-old with 11,000 career innings caught.
Perez is a part-time catcher now, totaling nearly as many starts between first base and designated hitter (67) as behind the plate (90) last season, but he’s already aged far better than anyone could have possibly predicted. Of course, that doesn’t mean skepticism isn’t warranted that he can keep slugging.
“I wouldn’t bet on Perez again in 2025,” said one baseball operations exec. “I think we’ll see something closer to the 2022-23 version and he won’t be a top-100 player.” — AG
Tier 6 — 20-something regulars
CJ Abrams: shortstop?
Foibles in the casino aside, CJ Abrams’ breakout season with the Nationals was not without its own asterisks. No defensive metric had him as an above-average defensive shortstop, and Statcast’s Outs Above Average had him as the very worst.
“CJ being the worst shortstop in baseball has me evaluating him as a second baseman moving forward (or outfield if they wanna move him there),” said an NL Scout.
Seen in the context of a less valuable position, his .747 OPS last year isn’t as exciting, even if he has good speed and nascent power. He’s 24. He has room to grow. He may just have to dedicate himself to it to move upwards in this ranking — which would mean fewer long nights out and more time on the back fields.
Royce Lewis battles his health
Thirty-three homers. 104 RBIs. A .825 OPS. Four wins above replacement. All of these would make for a great season, and they’ve come in 605 plate appearances for Royce Lewis. It’s just that it’s taken him so long to get here, what with all the injuries.
“Royce Lewis has probably the highest variance,” said an AL player development executive. “He could win the MVP, because his WAR per 162 games played is absurd. It just takes him three years to play 162.”
At 25, Lewis still has time to grow as a player and still has time to clean up his reputation as an injury-prone player. A full season could show us the real possibilities that can come from this athletic slugger with a great hit tool. Let’s all just hope that the ligaments stay in good shape, for his sake. — ES
Best of the rest
Here’s some love for the guys who didn’t make the list.
Even with a tier full of guys who could have better days in front of them, an entire grouping of pre-peak players with power and speed and defense like Matt McLain, Colton Cowser, James Wood, Junior Caminero, Lawrence Butler, Brenton Doyle and more, there was a little love for a couple of names that didn’t make the 100.
“Alec Bohm drove in close to 100 runs in each of the last two years and started in the All-Star Game last year,” said an NL pro scout. “He at least deserves to be in the 20-something group.”
“Jackson Holliday is going to be a very good player,” said a VP of baseball ops. “Perhaps he’s not there yet because he’s just 21. But I think it’ll be odd to look back on a list of the 100 best players and see him omitted.”
Young players break out all the time and make our rankings look silly — and players like Josh Lowe and Evan Carter could also be next, as was pointed out to us — but it’s still fun to try to take a snapshot of today’s top 100 players. Who else do you think we missed?
The Rankings and Tiers series is sponsored by E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Sponsors have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Masterpress, Rich Storry, Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
